The Hater – Jan Komasa | #film

The Hater – Jan Komasa

In the second instalment of his ‘suicidal’ diptych, Jan Komasa tells the story of a Poland divided by ideology and politics. His film ‘The Hater’ is a moving story about the evil that grants power and about power that enslaves.

‘If there’s one thing you can say about mankind: there's nothing kind about man’ – Tom Waits sang in one of his songs, and Jan Komasa seems to develop this assertion cinematically. His protagonist, a gifted student at a turning point in his life, delights in malice, sinking deeper and deeper into its depths.

After being expelled from university, Tomek (Maciej Musiałowski) has to reinvent himself. The boy does not want to lose the scholarship granted by his rich family friend, so he hides the truth about the end of his academic career. When he finds a job at a dubious PR agency, he exceeds the limits of his decency with every passing day.

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SALA SAMOBÓJCÓW. HEJTER - oficjalny zwiastun filmu

In The Hater, Jan Komasa leads his protagonist into a moral abyss, making him sink deeper and deeper into it. The director of Suicide Room does not try to whitewash him, nor does he show him as a victim. Tomek consciously chooses evil. Although he could turn back from his chosen path at any time, he does not do so, out of convenience and out of love for the power he gains.

When writing his character, Mateusz Pacewicz, the film’s scriptwriter, once again uses the figure he used in his debut Corpus Christi. Just like the young boy pretending to be a priest, the titular Hater builds himself from phrases he has heard, other people’s opinions and attitudes he has observed. However, while in Corpus Christi this practice served the purpose of an attempt to adapt and survive in a new environment, in The Hater mimicry only serves the cynical game of the protagonist, who treats thoughts and words as weapons with which he can hurt his opponents or pierce their armour. In this film, the world is a constant battlefield.

House divided by a wall

In his film, Komasa paints a sad picture of class-based Poland. It is a country divided much like H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, with Eloi elites studying at Oxford and Harvard and the Morlocks nestling in Warsaw’s dorms with bunk beds and queues to the toilet. On the one hand, we have the representatives of the elite making lofty speeches about the condition of the nation, and on the other, the aspiring rest, not allowed to eat at their table, frustrated and despised. On one side, the ‘patho-intelligence’ (as sung by the young Polish rapper Mata), on the other, the hoi polloi.

Komasa portrays this world with a strong, almost cartoonish style. The rich representatives of the elite are all the same in this film: with big flats in luxurious districts, Ukrainian women employed as domestic helpers and conflicts hidden under the cloak of bourgeois correctness.

By telling the story of the emergence of social tensions, Komasa brings an indictment against the Polish Eloi. He shows that xenophobia, nationalism and aggression are the result of their actions, their contempt and feudal attitude to the world. And even if this diagnosis is incomplete and highly simplified, it is very impressive in Komasa’s film.

Between opposites

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Still from the film The Hater, dir. Jan Komasa, pictured: Maciej Musiałowski, photo: Jarosław Sosiński/NaimaFilm

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This does not mean that The Hater is devoid of flaws. The latter are particularly noticeable in the story’s second act, when Komasa’s picture loses its pace, the protagonists’ actions start to be governed by a deus ex machina and the titular Hater is too often helped by coincidence.

Whilst the first hour of the film story is proof of the script and directorial skill of the Komasa-Pacewicz duo, the second part disappoints. The finale, to which the director leads us, can be predicted well in advance, and the intrigue itself then becomes somewhat trivial. But even then, the film as a whole is salvaged by the talent of Maciej Musiałowski.

The power of charisma

The young actor, a recent graduate of the Łódź Film School, once again confirms that he is one of the most talented, if not the most talented actor of his generation in Poland. Playing the role of the Hater, Musiałowski balances between the image of an evil demiurge and an unfortunate victim. At times he is moving and painfully truthful, and at others – thoroughly evil and disgusting.

Musiałowski makes Tomek’s transformation believable. Although he never leaves the screen, thanks to his natural charisma and outstanding skills, he does not lose the viewer’s attention even for a moment. Time and again he shows off his technical mastery – the final scene, in which Musiałowski plays out several different emotions in just a few seconds within a single glance, is a true acting masterpiece.

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Still from the film The Hater, dir. Jan Komasa, pictured: Maciej Musiałowski, photo: Jarosław Sosiński/NaimaFilm

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The Hater is supported by others – Vanessa Aleksander scores a great performance, and Agata Kulesza, Jacek Koman and Danuta Stenka keep their acting at a high level. Adam Gradowski deserves a special mention as he plays a young radical and creates a tragic and moving character on screen. Let us hope that Polish cinema will find an idea for him.

In telling the story of Poland in 2020, Jan Komasa has created a painfully true film. His The Hater is not only a portrait of a fractured society but also an attempt to diagnose the reasons for its division. The skilfully told, masterfully acted picture proves once again that Komasa is one of Poland’s top directors. Not only thanks to his talent as a stage director, but also his artistic courage and ambition, which pushes him into areas about which Polish cinema usually prefers to keep silent.

The Hater. Directed by: Jan Komasa. Screenplay: Mateusz Pacewicz. Cinematography: Radosław Ładczuk. Starring: Maciej Musiałowski, Vanessa Aleksander, Danuta Stenka, Agata Kulesza, Jacek Koman, Adam Gradowski. Polish Premiere: 6 March 2020.

Originally written in Polish by Bartosz Staszczyszyn, translated into English by PG, May 2021

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